Home from Milwaukee

Arrived home from Milwaukee about noon today after an eventful morning at our hotel that included a fire alarm just before 3 a.m., waking up at 5:15 a.m. to get ready to leave and finding out there was no water in the shower (but luckily, there was water in the sink and the toilet still flushed) and discovering at 6:15 a.m. that the elevators weren't working (luckily, the front desk was able to send someone up to help us lug our big, heavy suitcases chock full of new beads, tools and books down the 11 flights to the ground).

Poor beleaguered Bill at the front desk told us that someone had phoned a woman on the 3rd floor while the fire alarm was going off and told her that there was a fire and she needed to break open her window and start the sprinkler system, which she did (although Bill wasn't sure how she broke the window, he thought they were unbreakable. One of our fellow beaders on the flight home suggested she probably had a ballpeen hammer or bench block handy and used that!) Of course, her room and probably all her stuff is now totally flooded, she's listed on the police report as a "victim" and all that water interfered with the hotel's electrical system, which is why the elevators weren't working. The police had advised Bill that two other hotels also had similar "pranks" pulled on them last night as well.

I don't know how anyone would find this sort of stunt/vandalism amusing but unfortunately, there are people out there in the world that get enjoyment out of causing random inconvenience and distress to other people and that's just sad.

Fortunately for us, this was our only "bad" experience on the whole trip and I'll be sharing my stories and photos (once I sort through all 611 of them) with y'all in later posts. It was a truly amazing week and there is lots to tell!!

In the meantime, I'll share this cool photo I took as we were taxiing on the runway in Milwaukee earlier today. I love the contrast of the stripes and the swatches of colours.